


Days Like This

by kitschimage



Category: Ghost (Sweden Band)
Genre: ADHD / Autism Solidarity, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, I Polished This To Spite The Dumbass Anon Camping In My Inbox, Neurodivergent Characters By A Neurodivergent Author, Sensory Overload, Shitty Mental Health Days, Wholesome Brotherly Nonsense
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-29
Updated: 2021-01-29
Packaged: 2021-03-18 09:40:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,958
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28864947
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kitschimage/pseuds/kitschimage
Summary: Autistic legends Papa I and young Copia take turns helping ADHD icon Emeritus III through a bad sensory day.
Comments: 8
Kudos: 30





	1. The Morning

**September 4, 1982 ∙ Sweden**

Terzo flipped his pillow once more before pushing his face back into the fabric, hoping he’d finally located its cooler side. There was _a lot_ going on, it seemed, and the _everything_ of it all had begun to fill his brain with a fog he felt hopeless to parse. His room was too fucking bright, for starters. Granted, the blinds were drawn, blocking out most a rainy, overcast day, but that barely put a dent in his problem of finding even the _tiniest_ amount of light unbearable. To make matters worse, the creak of the church as it swayed in the wind caused the annoying buzz in his ears to leak into his already-sore head. The world was driving him crazy. Desperate to block out the sound, he pushed his palms into his temples, trying to focus _anything_ else, but his thoughts felt like grains of sand slowly slipping through his fingers.

“Normal people do not do this,” he mumbled bitterly. “Why can’t I just be normal.”

A sudden knock on his bedroom door roused him briefly from his spiral. Propping himself on his elbows, Terzo glanced over his shoulder, eyes heavy and threatening to fall shut. It was becoming difficult to discern whether he was the verge of passing out, throwing up, or experiencing some unfortunate combination of both — possibly at the same time. When the sound didn't persist, he sank back into the mattress. Whoever it was could come back later. He didn't have the bandwidth for visitors.

Speaking of, he hadn’t told Copia yet. Terzo’s temporary and uncharacteristic lack of energy was making it hard to summon the courage to divulge his current state to anyone, let alone one of his best friends. The only thing worse than feeling this way was announcing, publicly, that your own head was trying to kill you using weapons no one else could see. But also, and perhaps more importantly: he hated himself for ditching. They had been planning today’s adventures for over a week now, and he had gone and fucked it up by merely being alive. At the thought, tears began to well behind his tired eyes. He quickly squeezed them shut and rolled to his stomach, screaming his frustration into the sheets. The knock came again, and a defeated whine escaped his lips as his temples began to pound in time with the sound of knuckles against polished oak.

“Go away!” he snapped, face still pushed firmly into the bed. Bringing his legs to his chest, he wrapped himself around his blanket until his knees brushed with his forehead. It registered, albeit briefly, that the quilted material smelled eerily like Mezzo’s clothes. Terzo felt himself wanting to be angry at his older brother for once again borrowing what wasn’t his, but the knocking persisted, monopolizing his attention. 

“I said go _away!”_ he repeated. He tried to hold onto his rage, but felt his strength dwindle as the words left his mouth. He pushed his arms over his ears, defying the familiar _click_ of a knob as it turned and the padding of shoes moving across an old, wooden floor that followed.

“You know, I am fairly certain that a blanket works best when it is _not_ wadded up beneath you.”

Terzo felt the bed dip as his oldest brother lowered himself onto the mattress. He only sniffled in return, then turned back toward his pillow and let out a loud string of wails. This was all his fault. Copia would be furious with him. How could he not be? He’d probably _never_ forgive him. He was going to lose his best friend and there was nothing he could do to stop it. Everything sucked.

“I wanted to see Copia!” he blurted between sobs.

“Shh, I know. I know."

“I wanted to see Copia and I ruined _everything!_ He will never speak to me again!”

“That is not going to happen,” stated Primo matter-of-factly. He then reached a hand over the scene and quietly turned up the remainder of the blinds so the soft light no longer filtered onto the covers below. “That is not going to happen because that is not how friends behave. Copia cares for you. He will understand.”

A gloved hand began to rhythmically rub the tensed muscles in Terzo’s upper back. He shivered under his brother’s touch, the absence of dull sunlight suddenly making the sheets around him cold and rigid.

“You _do_ know that being upset at yourself will not make it better. We have talked about this. Many times. On days like this we rest, remember?”

The question was answered with a sniff and a tiny nod.

“Good.”

Primo stood and made his way across the room to a small dresser, humming softly to himself as he rummaged around before pulling a large, hand-sewn quilt from the bottom drawer. The unfamiliar melody broke through Terzo’s exhaustive haze. His oldest brother was almost always singing, and he wondered, briefly, if the barely-audible notes could be the beginning of a new song he’d been working on. The full album, he knew, was nearly complete.

“Interested?” Primo prompted, feeling his audience lock onto his humming.

Terzo paused before replying. “Why does that one not have words?”

“Lyrics,” Primo gently corrected, unfolding the blanket.

“Lyrics,” Terzo repeated, feeling a calm pool in his chest as he snuggled under the fabric being draped over his body. “Why does that one not have lyrics?”

“Not all songs need lyrics, you know.”

He chewed on that thought for a moment. “But, if there is no singing, what will you do?”

“You mean on stage?”

Terzo nodded.

Primo knelt, brushing his little brother's messy hair from his eyes and planting a small kiss on his forehead. “I suppose I will just have to stand back and let my ghouls shine. The spotlight is not something I always crave, after all.”

“Ew don't—” Terzo tensed, rubbing at the kiss. “Don't get your crusty face paint on me!”

“It is not crusty! I only applied it hours ago!” Primo laughed and flicked his youngest brother’s ear, watching the last traces of distress fade into a sleepy grin.

The room suddenly seemed pleasantly warm and comfortable, and Terzo’s eyelids felt impossibly heavy. He curled into himself under his newfound covers, the haze of dreams already setting in. “When I am Papa,” he yawned in reply, “I will make sure I do not get my paint all over my friends.” 

“I am sure you will,” Primo smiled, then stood and headed for the door. “Get some rest, frate.”


	2. The Afternoon

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Autistic legends Papa I and young Copia take turns helping ADHD icon Emeritus III through a bad sensory day.
> 
> Many thanks to my best friend [RJ](https://detectiverj.tumblr.com/) for helping me write Copia's part.

By the time Terzo woke, the sun had begun arcing its way toward the horizon. He stretched a little under the covers, feeling the warm quilt brush against his legs, then blinked the room into existence. A wicker chair had been placed just inches from his bedside. Atop its woven seat perched a small, mousy-haired boy, legs folded neatly beneath him with an outermost-facing foot quietly bouncing away. The heavy text from which he read lay open across his lap, and Terzo watched, with squinted vision, as a studious index finger gilded slowly over each line. He closed his eyes once more, then burrowed back into his pillow, drinking in the subtle sounds of words being mouthed along with the turn of a page.

“I do that too sometimes,” he whispered, gently rubbing the sleep from his face.

The break in silence caused Copia to immediately look up from his reading. His grin was laced with excitement, but he still managed to keep his voice as low as possible when he returned the sentiment with an: “Oh! You're awake!”

A wave of relief washed over the youngest Emeritus at the realization that his impromptu mental health day hadn’t offended his friend. With a yawn, he groggily returned the smile.

“What are you doing here?” he asked.

“Just keeping you company.”

“While I slept?”

Copia shrugged. “Your brother said it was okay.”

Terzo nodded. He wanted to thank his friend for being so understanding, especially on such short notice, but the need to clarify his situation seemed much more pressing. He hunched his shoulders forward, causing the covers to bunch around his neck like a turtle slowly retreating into its shell.

“Sometimes the world is too much for me,” he began, a little unsure of his wording. He could feel Copia watching him intently, warm brown eyes traveling slowly over his face as the explanation unfolded. It was hard not to feel like a specimen under a microscope, but he swallowed the discomfort currently accompanying his vulnerability and continued. “It hurts, sort of. And I have to lie down. Sometimes I sleep, sometimes I don’t. It depends.”

Copia simply nodded. “I know how that feels.”

“Yeah?” Terzo inquired.

Another nod. “Yeah. There are days where everything happens very loudly, and also all at once.”

Smiling seemed like the wrong reaction, especially since his friend’s ears were growing increasingly pinker the longer their shared admission went on, but there was no helping it. Something fluttered through Terzo's stomach. Something familiar but exciting. Something he couldn't quite place. For the briefest moment, the world seemed just a little smaller, and the boy hidden under layers of blankets in the dim light of a quiet room felt slightly less unknowable. He wanted to say a thousand things at once — all of them fast and cascading — but the residual energy deficit left him partially tongue tied.

“It is not all the time,” Copia continued when there was no reply, “but it happens a lot.” 

Terzo gave his head a shake, realizing he had become lost inside his thoughts, then forced himself to focus on his friend, accidentally staring at the other boy’s face a little longer than necessary. 

“Did you get glasses?” he asked, trying to wrangle the conversation back into his grasp.

Copia felt himself blush at the inquiry. His eyesight was shit. It always had been. Back at the abbey, his inability to read anything put in front of him felt like yet another bullet point on his ever-growing list of imperfections. He did what he could to hide it, but after joining the Emeritus Church earlier that year, it became apparent he couldn’t fool everyone. He knew Primo had been watching him closely since he arrived, and after realizing Copia seemed uncharacteristically useless unless he was holding his books a full arm’s length from his face, The Antipope did what any shepard would do and fixed his newest convert up with a pair of readers. 

Copia had been eternally grateful, admiring his reflection when no one was around, and sticking his nose into whatever reading material he could get his hands on, but he was still too shy to wear them in front of anyone else. Suddenly self-conscious, he reached to take them off.

“No, silly,” Terzo moved to catch Copia’s arm before he could unhook the glasses from his ears. “Don’t do that. You need them to read, right? Besides, I kinda like them.”

“You.. do?”

“Yeah. They suit you.”

Copia’s cheeks burned an unexpected and involuntary shade of crimson. “Um.. thanks,” he managed.

Terzo rolled to his stomach and stuffed an arm beneath his pillow to better support his head. He smiled at his friend with the side of his face that wasn't squished into the mattress, then pulled his quilt back over his shoulders.

“Read to me.”

“Huh?”

“Read to me,” Terzo commanded. “From your book. Fratello usually reads to me on days like this.”

“This is.. my Latin homework?” Copia offered, his reply sounding more like a question than a statement.

“So? It will sound good in your voice, trust me.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah,” Terzo affirmed. “Most things do.”

**Author's Note:**

> IF YOU WERE CURIOUS, [THIS](https://youtu.be/2tzCZnEmEDg?t=252) IS WHAT PAPA WAS HUMMING.


End file.
